Pearls.

It may be noted that the edible oyster does occasionally contain a small pearl, but of no particular commercial value. I hear that tiny pearls are quite commonly found in mussels. The same reason that causes an oyster to secrete a pearly substance round an irritating atom of grit, enables it to construct a pearly wall inside its shell to prevent further encroachment of any object which obtains firm lodgment round the internal edges.

Prices of Oysters.

In his History of agriculture and Prices in England, from 1259 to 1702, Professor Rogers gives carefully compiled tables of prices at which oysters were obtained in various parts of England, though I do not find Whitstable oysters mentioned in any way. Most of the prices in question were obtained from the roll of Thorney, in Sussex, and Sharpness, Sharpness then being a manor attached to Battle Abbey. In 1273 oysters appear to have been bought at the rate of 1/2d. per hundred, this being the earliest mention of price.

In Kent, oysters seem to have been sold by the bushel, and the earliest reference to oysters from that county-probably from Whitstable or the near neighbourhood-is in 1388, when the price was 8d. per bushel though in 1393 a lower price is recorded, viz., 6d. a bushel. In 1390 oysters were 8d. and mussels 5d. a bushel. Jumping to 1572 the price was 4d. per hundred, five hundred going to a bushel now-a-days. In 1595 some oysters are recorded as fetching 6d. a peck in London. It may be interesting to notice that in 1513 cockles fetched 8d a bushel, so that in the sixteenth century the prices of oysters, mussels, and cockles were not vastly different.

In 1559 a hundred oysters changed hands at 9d., and for three years after the price varied from 8d. to 10d. a hundred. In 1614 Selsey oysters are specially mentioned at 1s. 4d. per hundred, and in the same year other oysters were only 5d. per hundred.

In 1638 a barrel of Mendham oysters cost 5s., and a purchase of 50 great oysters is recorded at 3s. per hundred, and in 1639 Hunston oysters cost 3s.4d. per hundred. In 1653 one bushel of oysters changed hands for 2s.4d., and from that date till 1680 prices ruled from that price to 3s.6d. per bushel.

In London two quarts of oysters were sold at 25. per quart in 1698.

The Kentish Gazette in its issue of 23rd January, 1823, mentioned that oysters fetched four guineas a bushel at Billingsgate. They were brought to London in waggons, as the frost was so severe vessels could not bring the oysters up by water. The wholesale price of "Royals" at Whitstable, in February, 1902, was 18s. per hundred tale, which was about doubled when they reached the consumer in London from the retail dealers.

French, and other foreign oysters, are very much cheaper, even as low as 6d. a dozen, retail. Some readers may remember the comic song in which an economical lady is described as sitting in front of a mirror to eat half-a-dozen oysters, in order that she might think they were a dozen. With good oysters like "Royals" at four or five shillings a dozen, economy like that is not altogether surprising, though the price is not really high to a sincere lover of oysters to whose palate the real genuine article is a peculiarly gratifying sensation.

The general public are not aware of the amount of labour and trouble devoted to providing them with a satisfactory oyster. Each one is examined, selected and cleaned from excrescences as carefully as if it were a blossom to be exhibited at a flower show, and those who have watched the process have gone away no longer wondering that the best English oyster cannot be sold in London so cheaply as some of the foreigners.

Professor Rogers, in Vol. IV. of his interesting work, says “There are fifteen entries of oysters, generally by the hundred or thousand, once by a measure which I cannot interpret, 'the Waste.'" This entry is ~ 1482, and he gives it as "2 1/2 waste, 4d." Personally, I think there can be no doubt this word should be read as "Wash," that being a measure in everyday use in Whitstable even now.

It would be interesting to know what was the probable value of the half-penny in 1273, when that was the price of one hundred oysters. It will be remembered that the only coins of the Kings, down to Edward III., were silver pennies. There were imaginary coins (money of account), just as we might speak of a pound without reference to the sovereign, and in Saxon and early English times, the Scilling or Shilling was such an imaginary coin.

William I. settled the Saxon Shilling at four pennies, but also established a Norman Shilling at twelve pennies.

Yet no actual coin representing a shilling appeared till the reign of Henry VII. The first English pennies weighed 22 1/2' grains troy of silver. Under Edward III. the same coins weighed 8 grains, under Edward IV. 12 grains, and under Edward VI. 8 grains. Half-pennies were formed by cutting the penny into two pieces, the penny being marked with a cross, possibly as a guide for division into two or four parts. Curiosity is aroused by hearing that the price of oysters in 1273 was a half-penny per hundred, but it is extremely difficult to get at the real relationship of values then and now. Adam Smith considered the prices of wheat more suggestive of relative value than any other commodity. In that same year wheat cost an average of 5s. per quarter of 8 bushels, eggs were 3 1/2d. the great hundred, which was 120, and butter was 6d. a gallon. English wheat is now 28s. to 30s. per quarter, and within recollection was at least double that price, so that a consideration of the cost of wheat does not help us very much. At the beginning of the 14th century sheep cost 1s. each, and meat one farthing a pound, and butter and cheese were at least double the price of meat.

In further brief illustration of prices at that period, as bearing on the price of oysters, there is record of a man having to carry manure at a payment of 1/2d. a day, or give 1 1/2d. in lieu of the service, and in 1334 another individual had to furnish a man, cart, and two horses for the same agricultural purpose, for which he received a farthing worth of bread for the first day, and on the second day a repast worth three half-pence. Now-a-days, a contractor providing a man, cart and horse, is paid from seven to ten shillings a day. It may be possible to deduce a comparative relation of value from these notes, but in any case it would seem clear that oysters, like fish, were a luxury, especially to the poor, to whom the whale and porpoise are known to have been choice dishes, the flesh of the latter, served with bread crumbs and vinegar, having been consumed by the nobles of England in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

The price of "Royals" and other oysters vary from time to time, but the men who live by their cultivation go on un­complainingly whatever the state of their special trade may be, and it certainly is not always good. Strikes are unknown to them, and all they object to is interference or criticism by people who are not in a position to understand the difficulties under which they work, though they welcome those who come to learn what they can of their occupation of oyster culture.

By innumerable indications at sea, and marks on land, by the experience gained by years of apprenticeship and manly toil, following in the footsteps of ancestors during centuries past, the oyster fishermen attain a perfect acquaintance with the ground or flats hidden beneath the waves of the North Sea. They provide us with a table luxury and themselves with a livelihood, and enjoy in fine weather a pleasant occupation, which in winter becomes both dangerous and hard, requiring all the pluck and endurance with which the Oyster Dredgers of Whitstable are so justly credited.

The End.